Day 6

I went for a walk today. A real one.

I hadn’t left the mansion since burying Todrick. It’s easy to stay here for days at a time, food growing in the hardwood floors. And now there’s no one urging me out, no Todrick lecturing me about how walking is good for one’s health. No Marie calling for me to come see the birds.

She died three years ago.

She made it to 75. Give or take.

We’ve lived longer than the last generations did. Longer hasn’t saved us.

There’s no one to bury me when I die.

I went for a walk today. Under the oaks. They’re starting to turn golden.

It’s beautiful beneath them. There’s a reason I buried my daughter there. She loved them as a baby. I’d sit outside with her, and she’d reach out to them, babbling. If she’d been stronger, if I had been stronger, perhaps she would have grown up running amongst them. Perhaps they would have been friends, like the Anne-girl I named her after. My own dear Anne-girl.

I went for a walk today. The leaves are turning golden, and the birds are beginning to arrive for winter. I saw a flock of geese flying overhead. Brent Geese, I think. Marie would know. A red-breasted robin watched me.

I think it was the robin Marie saved. The one that fell from the nest before she was ready. Marie found her and nursed her back to health. They were friends until the day Marie died. Robin was with her at the end. That’s how we knew something was wrong. She was frantic.

Maybe it’s one of her children. I don’t know how long robins live. Marie would have known.

I went for a walk today. I stopped by the Michaelmas daisies Freddy planted, years and years ago. I’m amazed they’re still there, flowering defiantly.

He loved those flowers. Said they felt like innocence. And determination, flowering like that as the weather gets colder.

I picked some and laid them on his grave. He would have liked that. Maybe I should move some. Maybe he’d like it if they grew right out of the ground above him. Maybe he’d like to feed the flowers that brought him so much joy.

No one has been buried in a coffin for years.

We didn’t know how to make them.

And as we got older, well, it was hard enough for me to move Todrick on my own. A coffin would have been impossible.

I won’t be buried in a coffin.

I won’t be buried at all.

There’s no one left to bury me. No one left to cry.

I went for a walk today. I climbed the hill Todrick loved. I sat on the grass. I cried.